I graduated from college this past spring with PRs of 15:08 and 31:41. Pretty decent for my conference, and I think my coach trained me intelligently and got the most out of my abilities.
After a lot of time interviewing for jobs, finally locking one down, moving out and starting my career, I found that I completely let my running slip. I mean, I was conscious of it the whole time, but never really cared. I probably went for a run once or twice per week here and there, but my fitness completely deteriorated, obviously. I gained maybe 5lbs tops.
Now, here I am. I've been back at running for about a month and a half, but have made zero progress at all. I hopped right into 50mpw , and it didn't seem to crush me, so that's where I've stayed. I feel like it isn't getting any easier at all though, and most of my runs top out at 7:30/mi or so. I typically average 7:30-8min/mi and its actually pretty laborious. I guess I haven't been anywhere close to this out of shape in 5+ years. In college I ran 90mpw in summer and 70-80mpw during the season and that combination seemed to work well for me.
I know how to execute and build a training plan once in decent shape, but for now I have no clue where to go. Should I bump up the mileage and just keep slogging slow paces? Should I stay where I'm at for mpw and try to force the pace down to something decent? I haven't been running workouts or tempos at all, but my eventual goal is to run a good half / full marathon.